LOS ANGELES, Feb 28, 2022 (BSS/AFP) - Once a year, Hollywood hosts the
Oscars -- but every night hundreds of homeless people sleep on and around the
Los Angeles neighborhood's star-lined streets.

   Those two starkly contrasting worlds are set to collide next month when
the directors of "Lead Me Home," a nominated film on the United States'
homeless crisis, plan to invite their subjects onto the Oscars' red carpet as
their guests.

   "Hopefully, on the day of the ceremony we can shine a little bit of a
light on that juxtaposition, and raise awareness of the humanity that's right
across the street, literally, and that we've all been ignoring for too long,"
said Pedro Kos, co-director of the short documentary.

   "We have our fingers crossed that we can bring two or three of them with
us" to the March 27 ceremony, his fellow director Jon Shenk told AFP.

   The film, available on Netflix, follows a dozen or so homeless and
vulnerable people in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle over the course
of three years.

   It presents in intimate detail their daily routines and struggles on the
streets, and their hopes and dreams for escaping them.

   - Seen as less than human -

   Subjects include Luis Rivera Miranda, a middle-aged dog-owner who strikes
up romance with a fellow homeless woman, and Ronnie "Futuristic Astaire"
Willis, who dances for tourists on Hollywood Boulevard in order to afford
food.

   "He has an extraordinary story -- someone who is a classically trained
dancer, who has danced with Janet Jackson, who choreographed Sisqo's 'Thong
Song,' who fell on hard times, unfortunately, due to many different factors,"
said Kos.

   In Willis's scenes "you actually see the side of the Dolby Theater" where
the Oscars are held, he added.

   According to the filmmakers, a major problem is that so many people view
their unhoused neighbors in a dehumanizing way, and convince themselves that
the homeless must be to blame for their own plight.

   But asked how they became homeless, the film's subjects list diverse
factors such as disability, rejection by family members after coming out as
transgender, and even depression triggered by the 9/11 attacks.

   "I think it comes from our own fear of falling through the cracks," said
Shenk.

   "And so we're hoping that the film can in some ways provide a new
perspective that personalizes this, breaks it down, says, 'Hey, wait a
minute, let's remember who we're talking about -- these are Americans,
they're our neighbors, they have rights, they are people.'"

   - 'Crisis of humanity' -

   The directors gained access and earned their subjects' trust by working
with a number of homeless support organizations.

   Rather than interviewing them directly, Shenk set up his camera at
shelters where the homeless underwent "vulnerability assessment" interviews,
leaving the room so that they could discuss their situations more freely.

   But one of the film's more harrowing moments comes as a homeless woman
tells a social worker at a makeshift camp that she has been beaten again by a
man called Mike, prompting the social worker to call a shelter to help her
escape.

   "For women, the sexual violence is really real," said Shenk. "I can't
think of a woman that we met that didn't have some story related to that."

   Shenk and Kos do not have a grand solution to a problem that plagues every
elected leader in the West Coast cities -- and other US cities as well -- but
said that simplifying the vast bureaucracy of programs available to the
homeless would be a start.

   Los Angeles is currently conducting its first homeless count in two years.
The last census was scrapped due to Covid-19.

   The film notes that moratoriums on evictions brought in due to the
pandemic are about to expire, potentially worsening the crisis.

   "There's no question in our minds that there is a giant crisis of humanity
going on in America," said Shenk.

   "We hope to use this tiny little moment that is shining on our tiny little
film to have an open conversation that allows people to see perhaps a
perspective they haven't been exposed to on this issue."